Named By: | Timothy Abbott Conrad in 1842 |
Time Period: | Middle Ordovician - Wenlock 470-425 Ma |
Location: | Fossils known from Europe, North America and mainland China, suggesting a cosmopolitan distribution |
Size: | Modern estimates place the shell length at about 6 meters long, though in the past this has been estimated to have been larger |
Diet: | Carnivore |
Fossil(s): | Shells |
Classification: | | Mollusca | Cephalopoda | Nautiloidea | Endocerida | Endoceratidae | |
Cameroceras ("chambered horn") is a genus of extinct, giant orthoconic cephalopod that lived mainly during the Ordovician period. It first appears during the middle Ordovician, around 470 million years ago, and was a fairly common component of the fauna in some places during the period, inhabiting the shallow seas of Laurentia, Baltica and Siberia. Its diversity and abundance became severely reduced following the Ordovician-Silurian extinction events, and the last remnants of the genus went extinct sometime during the Wenlock.